And, Sprint did something unique in the wireless industry. Instead of making cancelling service an impossible task, Sprint called us up and wanted to work with PhoneNews.com to ensure no headaches this time when cancelling.

Effective today, you can call up customer service and schedule service cancellation. Be sure to follow the following steps, outlined by Sprint:

1) You must call in after January 1 (as in, starting today). Ask to be transferred to the cancellation department.
2) When you reach the cancellation department, note the $.40 regulatory fee increase that took effect at the start of January. Explain that this is a material change, and you would like to terminate service without the early termination fee.
3) If you are porting your number out to another carrier, alert the representative of this. They will note your account to be closed out properly after porting.
4) Be sure to only port your number after calling customer service, and explaining the process above. If you cancel service or port your number to another provider before following steps one through three, you will be charged the early termination fee.
5) You have until January 31st to schedule disconnect of service. You may complete your billing cycle, but any requests to cancel your contract after the 31st will be denied.

If you’ve tried that a couple of times, and haven’t found success… Simply contact us at PhoneNews.com. We’ll get you in touch with a team of ombudsmen at Sprint that will make sure your account is closed properly.

Update (1/6): Latest update on the situation…
We’d like to take a moment to thank Sprint for this industry-leading spirit of cooperation.

Christopher Price is the Founding Editor of PhoneNews.com. Today, he leads the team building Console, Inc. - a new kind of Android™ device. He still likes to pontificate... a lot. You can visit his personal blog at ChristopherPrice.net.

159 responses to “Sprint & PhoneNews.com Team Up To Help ETF Out Go Smoothly”

This does work, and it is easy. As a matter of fact, it works even if you port your number first… contrary to the article. It seems like clock-work, every January 1st Sprint adds a small fee similar to this one. I have attempted to cancel without an ETF the past two years, but have been lured in by the credits/discounts/free phones Sprint has given me for sticking with them. However, this time my wife and I were bound-and-determined that we wanted iPhones. I chose to port our numbers and buy our iPhones before canceling our Sprint contracts, as I was worried that if I called Sprint first they would cancel on the spot and I would lose the ability to port our #s. So that is what we did… We ported both lines to AT&T and bought iPhones, the same night I got home – I called Sprint and let them know that I just ported because of the “material adverse change” to my contract, which I refered to on my bill as the $.40 increase to the regulatory fee. They made no attempts to keep my business after I was transferred to the “retention department”… they simply said to wait 3-5 business days for the $400 credit to show-up. Sure enough, I called five days later and my total bill was $15.31… which is actually less than I calculated my final bill should have been. Worked great!!

I hate sprint and will do anything to end my contract without an ETF… i feel line they continue to find ways to get over on me and take my money. They us thought of this new litte thing called a credit limit fee. What! i didn’t ask for a credit limit.. so our going to charge me for forcing me to have one? and then recently the cut my services off becasue of insufficient funds when i caled back to get them to stop payment and i actually made the payment a second time. not only did they trun my phone off but they hit me with an NSF and my bank hit me with 2 NSF’s and what did sprint do?.. NOTHING!… gave me one of those “i’m sorry but your bassicaly SOL” right about now.. I’m frious with sprint and ready to disconnect. but i realy don’t want to pay the ETF.

Hi Nathan,
I just wanted to answer your question in case you never found an answer. I have been trying to get my account disconnected without an ETF seeing as I didn’t know about any of this until it was too late to cancel. I did try to cancel and was told I could not do so without an ETF. I tried again today. Same thing. The supervisor did say she could wave my ETF to $100.00 per line instead of $130 per line but still that’s not what I want. I need out of my contract. She is trying to send in a request to cancel without ETF waiver and see what happens from there but she didn’t sound too hopeful and I believe she was being honest and straight forward about things. So long explanation shorter: You had to cancel by Jan.31,2010 if you did not then you are stuck with the ETF. If you were like me and probably many of us you probably did not receive or know that you received a letter telling you of the deadline to do this and or see it listed on your bill until the time had elapsed to cancel before the deadline. I hope this at least helps you in knowing what your options are. Wish I had better news for the both of us.

Just an update as I often read these posts and get value but have been remiss in replying back and posting updates myself. Hope this helps someone figure out their cell phone dilemmas somewhere…

I followed the instructions above on 1/27/10 and canceled my service (despite lots of selling and price slashing trying to keep me as a customer). Little did I know, they charged the $200 termination fee anyway. I didn’t realize it until I received a collection notice in the mail for it being past due recently. Today I tried chatting online, then a phone call to the specified # by the chat assistant and four transfers later I spoke to Christine. Apparently I had two lines on my account. I ported one, and asked to have the other canceled as it was inactive (and had been for a couple years). They left open the inactive line which triggered the termination fee afterall. In the end Christine was able to help me and remove the fee. It’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back but I’m happy to have the refund.

Keep getting a run around from Sprint. This is the third time I’ve called about this and they ‘forget’ that they previously agreed to get rid of the early termination fee. Each time I call they say that there isn’t any information on my account stating that they agreed to waive it when the last couple of times I’ve talked to them, they agree to do it.